Sandstorm
by zyxxy
Summary: Far away from his homeland, the Prince manages to get involved into a world-threatening ancient feud between two sibling gods. But no matter many years pass or how far he runs, the Prince's past always manages to catch up to him.
1. Into the Storm

_Time._

Some say that time is like a river, flowing straight and true, never veering from the current.  
Others say that time is like an ocean, everchanging and unstable, the events in the timeline rocking like fishboats in a storm.  
They are wrong.

The truth is, time is a violent sandstorm, uncaring and unstoppable, destroying kingdoms and empires in its path alike, enveloping fates of the people like small grains in an all-encompassing desert.

* * *

"Zahra!", a shout can be heard in the distance. "Zaaaahra!"

A man calls for his companion, lost in a sandstorm, which are all too frequent in the desert he's travelling through. His vision is obscured by the sand whirling around him, and so, he doesn't notice the precipice until it's too late, until he slips, tumbling down into the canyon below, his shout interrupted mid-word.  
He lands on his feet, like he always does in the recent years, his reflexes honed by years of experience.

"I'm going to feel that for a long time," the man mutters in complaint addressed to no one in particular, and proceeds to briefly shake himself down from the dust and dirt of the sandstorm above.  
"Zaaaahra?", he shouts, lowering his voice slightly as it echoes from the walls of the canyon. He sighs in exasperation, silently admitting to himself that will never find "that stupid donkey".  
"...Well, as good a place to start as any," the man shrugs, thinking how he is going to find the donkey. "Might as well look for a way out while I'm at it."  
 **Next time you decide to make a trip, you should probably change your destination to something that isn't "off a cliff".  
** "Shut up," he mutters to himself.

He leisurely traverses the canyon, easily clearing the gaps and pitfalls, sometimes clinging to the walls with his gauntlet and sometimes climbing the steep cliffs of the canyon. When he finally reaches a clearing, he is stunned by the view in front of him.

"This is the second most impressive view I've seen in my entire life," he whistles casually, impressed by the magnificence of the grand tree in the distance that seems to be scratching the skies themselves.

* * *

The soles of her bare feet hurt, but the girl doesn't slow down. She realizes that she somehow managed to shake off the pursuit of her former servants, if only momentarily, but if she doesn't hurry, her father will reach the Temple before her.  
She simply can't afford it, not with the fate of the world at stakes, and so the girl goes for the shortest and riskiest route possible, the magic of Ormazd flowing in her veins adding a spring in her step and aiding her in her jumps. She feels light and full of energy, as if she could fly if she tried, and this simple joy only adds to her guilty conscience.  
"My father should've never done what he did," she whispers quietly.  
When the girl reaches the clearing that leads to the Temple Grounds, she stops abruptly in cautious surprise.

She sees a man, surrounded by her father's guards, wearing a sparse outfit of jacket, pants and sandals, accentuated by two vividly colorful scarves on his head. Her attention shifts slightly to the man's left arm that is muscular, covered in scars obscured by an intricate golden tattoo, his hand hidden in a metal gauntlet that looks like it has seen better days.

It seems like neither the man, nor her father guards have noticed her yet. She takes this chance to try to slip through unnoticed.

* * *

"Where is she, stranger?", one of the guards asks impatiently, holding the stranger at spearpoint. "Where is the princess?"  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, no need to get hasty, gentlemen," the man says cheerfully, his hand simultaneously slipping onto the sword's grip, ready to take it out of the sheath at moment's notice. "I don't even know what princess you are talking about. I mean, I've met my fair share of princesses over the course of my life, but-"  
"We don't have time for this, stranger. Where is princess Elika?", the guard repeats himself menacingly.  
"Look, I'm just trying to find my donkey. Answers to 'Zahra', about this tall, has a bag on her back full of gold and the cutest tail you've ever seen?", the man says, the cheer in his voice unfaltering.  
"I think he is stalling for time for the princess to reach the Tree of Life," another guard says abruptly. "We should subdue and interrogate him properly."  
"And I thought this was going so well," the man says casually, retrieving his sword out of the sheath.

The ensuing fight is intense, but short. The stranger easily dispatches the guards, the last of them turning tail and fleeing when he sees his comrades fail.  
The man briefly glances at his handiwork - one of the guards bearing a painful, but ultimately inconsequential slash of the sword, while the other guard wincing in intense pain, pierced by the gauntlet.  
"It doesn't always need to end in bloodshed," the man notes in satisfaction. "If only you believed me the first time, eh?"  
 **Oh, boohoo, cry me a river. While you are being all buddy-buddy with them, do you realize they would happily stab you in the back if opportunity presented itself?  
** "Shut up, I said," he says automatically, a well-ingrained reflex by this point. "The Tree of Life, huh? Let's see what all the racket is all about, shall we?"


	2. The Tree of Life

She needs to open the Temple's doors.

The girl briefly observes the view from the top of the tower, checking for pursuit, and when she finds none, she return to the task at hand. She struggles with the mechanism that is rusted from all the years of disuse. It is obvious that she lacks the necessary strength to turn it and open the Temple's doors, but the girl still tries her hardest. After all, it's not like she has other options at the moment—

"Hi," she hears a lively voice from below, and her blood freezes momentarily as she fears the worst.

* * *

He climbs the tower swiftly, and before she knows it, she is already facing the stranger and his smirking expression.

"Elika, right?", he speaks nonchalantly, "Mind telling me why those people back there are trying to kill you and, by association, yours truly?"  
"They are not trying to _kill_ me," she says, relaxing slightly when she realizes the man is not there to capture her, yet her posture remains guarded.  
"Weird, 'cause I could swear they weren't there to give you a surprise birthday present."  
"You have no idea," Elika chuckles at the irony of the statement. "Look, we don't have much time. I need you to give me a hand here."  
"We?", the man's brow arches quizzically.  
"Unless you want to witness an evil god consuming the entire world as we know it," she answers impatiently, resuming her attempts at operating the door mechanism, "yes, _we_."  
 **Wouldn't be the first time.**  
Sensing urgency in her voice, the man reflects upon the situation for an instant as he comes to a decision.  
"...Well, excuuuse me, princess," he says, joining Elika and pressing down against the other lever of the turning mechanism.  
After a brief struggle, the mechanism turns and the Temple's doors fly open, inviting its visitors in.

"I believe you have me at a disadvantage, stranger", Elika says as they descend from the tower and walk briskly into the grand hall of the temple.  
"...You're a princess, right?", he notes thoughtfully. "Then I guess it would be all too fitting to call me your Prince."

"What?", the Prince shrugs off the girl's glare with a grin. "Am I not your knight in the shining armor? The savior of damsels in distress and a hero extraordinaire?"  
"Very funny," she snorts with a slight note of disdain. "What's your actual name?"  
"Look, Elika, I haven't used my name in a long time, and I'm not about to start soon. Names give power over people, you know."  
"Prince it is then. Funny, you don't strike me for a superstitious sort—", she starts, abruptly interrupting herself, "Heads up."  
She quickens her pace into a run, closely followed by the Prince.

She knows she should've gotten here before her father, but somehow, he seems to have arrived before her.  
She can only hope it's not too late.

* * *

 _It's too late._  
In a moment's notice, the entirety of previous scene plays out in her mind.

She sees herself trying to convince her father to stop, saying that they can still fix the seal before the dark god breaks out. And yet, he doesn't listen. Instead, he turns his attention to the vagrant behind her back, and, filled with fury, her father attacks the unwelcome guest.  
She sees the Prince deflect her father's sudden strike, and after a short bout of swordplay, her father does the worst thing he could do.  
He breaks the seal.

"We have to get out, now!", the Prince's shout jerks the sorceress out of her thoughts.

The Corruption around them sloshes and whirls around, threatening to drown them at moment's notice as the temple starts falling apart.  
"You know," the man says, driving his sword through an abomination that one of the king's guards has become, "now would be a good time to tell me what evil god your father managed to unseal."  
"I— Hold on a second!", as she blasts another monster off the platform with her magic, "Ahriman! His name is Ahriman."  
 **Ahriman? _That_ Ahriman?**  
"...Ahriman? The big bad guy of pure evil?", the Prince laughs almost hysterically, "Are you serious? Your father thought releasing this guy was a good idea?"  
"We don't have time for this!", Elika says, pointing out the obvious, running across collapsing floor, "Jump!"  
Segueing said jump into a wallrun, the man dashes madly through the crumpling hallway that leads outside, to relative safety, closely followed by the princess.

The Prince curses when he sees the last obstacle on his way, before asking urgently, "Is your magic strong enough for you to support me?"  
"Looks like we'll have to find out!", he hears the sorceress's reply.


	3. Temple Grounds

"Remind me to never do this again," the Prince pants, as the leap of faith he performed moments ago flashes before his eyes again.  
 **I still can't believe you trusted her with your life. You met her not even an hour ago!**  
"Better her than you," he mutters absentmindedly, when he suddenly notices the girl's condition, "Whoa, are you okay?"  
He quickly props Elika against his shoulder, as her body threatens to collapse from exhaustion, and as he takes in the view around him and observes the drastic change, he has a bad feeling about current situation.

It is usually hard to call the desert "full of life", but the view in front of him is completely barren. Dull. Lifeless. Even the vibrant yellow color of the sand seems to be missing, as the sun that gave that color to the sand is hidden behind a maelstrom of clouds, plunging the land around him into darkness. Only then the Prince finally realizes the full gravity of the situation. He feels the girl squirming on his shoulder, and turns his attention to her.  
"Are you good to go?", he asks, judging the princess's condition carefully.  
"Yes," she answers succinctly.

"So," the Prince notes idly with a faux cheer, "the big bad Ahriman. Hides under your bed, eats naughty children and, apparently, destroys worlds. Who knew the world was such a fun place to live in?"  
"He's not yet released from his prison, not completely," Elika ponders thoughtfully, her voice growing resolute. "We still have time. We can still stop him."  
"Well, he's doing a bang-up job ruining things even with the power he has right now, in my opinion," the Prince adds sarcastically.  
"I need your help in sealing Ahriman back," the sorceress says with a pleading note in her voice. "Or are you going to just leave?"  
"I didn't say that," the Prince counters her statement. "Against my better judgment—"  
 **Against _our_ better judgment.**  
"...As I said, against _my_ better judgment," the Prince's voice carefully masking the dull surprise that the sudden agreement brings, "I'm not about to turn tail and flee, leaving you behind to sort out this mess."

* * *

"We'll have to reach the Fertile Grounds here, here, here and here," Elika states, lighting up the map on the ground with her magic. "We can't reach the other Grounds yet, so we'll have to play it by the ear from there."  
 **Great, nevermind that the fate of the world supposedly hinges on her barely existent plan, which basically says "improvise".**  
"If you have a better plan, you're welcome to share it," the Prince says a bit too loudly, his outburst reaching Elika's ears.  
"I don't," she answers, misinterpreting his phrase. "We still have do something, and this is our best bet."

"Who even sealed Ahriman in the Temple in the first place?", he deflects the topic. "Because if we know how he did it or maybe ask this guy for help—"  
"He's _already_ helping us. This magic," she scoffs, her hands momentarily coated by immaterial white flames, "It's coming from Ormazd. The Ahura have worshipped him for centuries, after he sealed his malicious brother into the Tree of Life. It's only thanks to Ormazd's blessing that we haven't turned into one of the Corrupted yet."  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down," the Prince motions her to a halt. "You're telling me that all the tripe and fairytale stuff I've heard from zoroastrian priests is true?"  
"Well, probably not _all_ of them," Elika's lips curl into an amused smile. "You do realize that I'm a priestess too, right? But the gist of what you might've heard is likely correct."  
"...Why am I not surprised?" the Prince sighs in exasperation. "Let's head out."

* * *

"What is Corruption anyway?", the Prince's curious voice breaks uncomfortable silence, as he and Elika cross the barren desert.  
"The Corruption is Ahriman's influence upon the world," the priestess recites the words she was taught ever since her childhood. "It contaminates the earth, and taints the hearts of the people. The slime that it manifests as is lethal to touch, and actively malign, slowly spreading and consuming its surroundings, perverting the very nature of existence into subservience to Ahriman."

 **And you said the Sands were bad. Compared to what's happening here, my existence doesn't even rate on the scale.**  
"It rates on my personal scale, and that's quite enough for me to reach a verdict," the Prince mutters irately.  
"Did you just say something?"  
"Nothing!", he spouts, before adding sheepishly, "Uh, I mean, just talking to myself, Elika. No reason to be concerned."  
"You should focus," Princess mentions seriously, carefully judging the man's reaction. "Right now literally everything is trying to kill us."  
"Wouldn't be the first— Whoa!", the Prince startles to catch Elika as she collapses again, when suddenly both of them plummet into the whirlpool of magic.

* * *

 _Darkness._  
An enveloping twilight covers the Prince's vision, as the shadow play in front of him unfolds. The booming echo of the voices deafens him slightly, yet the words sound crystal clear in his mind.

"You know what it is that I ask!"  
He looks at Elika's father - the spitting image of a King - both his posture and voice demanding, powerful, unrelenting even in the face of dark god.  
Elika's image sprints nearby and falls, cast into all-consuming darkness.  
 _Dead._

"If you would have your wish..."  
Ahriman. The dark god himself. Ensnaring, commanding voice of a divine being who views the mortals' affairs as mere trifles.  
More images of Elika. Some sort of light sphere. Her father laying his daughter on a pedestal.  
 _Alive._

Monsters. Abominations. Corrupted by Ahriman, yet still retaining key features that defined them, unlike the ones he fought back in the Temple.  
Four of them. A predator. A scholar. A seductress. A hulking beast.  
"...then give me mine!", Ahriman's voice growls in demand.

* * *

And then, suddenly, the Prince is thrown out violently out of the vision, returning to the real world.

"That vision— You— You were dead!", the Prince claims accusingly. "...And you'll probably have to die again just to seal Ahriman back!"  
"So what if I'll have to?! Do you see another way?!", Elika's voice raises to match the Prince's. "The world's fate is at stakes!"  
"No, you're right. Right now, we don't have any other options," he answers, forcing himself to calm down, before adding grimly, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Who were those monstrous creatures?"  
"Ahriman's chosen ones, those who willingly entered his service in promise of immeasurable power and their very hearts' desires," she mutters darkly. "We've got to get moving. Stay on your guard."


	4. The Cauldron

"So... princess, huh? Sorceress and priestess to boot," the Prince tears through the uneasy silence as they traverse the desolate gorge that is stained by the Corruption.  
"What, don't know how to act in front of one?", Elika teases mercilessly.  
"I've met my fair share," the man adds cryptically. "That makes your father a king, doesn't it? Not that I approve of his actions, but I can understand why he did what he did."  
"He endangered his people!", the girl stresses in the moment of an instant fury. "He robbed the entire world of its existence!"  
"He saved his beloved daughter," the Prince explains patiently in a mentor-like manner. "People are _selfish_ , princess. Sometimes they do stupid things for the sake of their loved ones even if it means sacrificing someone else."  
He halts momentarily, before hesitantly adding to his words.  
"Everyone else."

* * *

"Jump!", the sorceress shouts to the Prince.  
They make a mad scramble in attempt to gain higher ground, the Corruption steady on their trail, flooding the valley and steadily rising, threatening to swallow them if they aren't quick enough. They cooperate flawlessly, as if they were long-time partners, knowing that if one of them makes a mistake, then they are as good as dead, and when they finally reach the Fertile Ground, they are confronted by one of the Ahriman's generals.

The Alchemist. The self-appointed master of the Vale domain.  
The Corrupted man speaks of knowledge beyond their imagination, of the experiments that need to be conducted, of horrors to be committed.  
They don't listen to a word of it, as the the Prince's sword quickly interrupts whatever the creature tries to convince them of.

The following fight is straining, but brief. The priestess uses her magic sparingly, fearing that she'll collapse from exhaustion again, and so she mostly defers to supporting the Prince's skillful swordplay that pushes the monster back until it flees deeper into its domain.  
"What now?", the Prince asks curiously.  
"I'm... not sure", Elika frowns thoughtfully, approaching the center of the Fertile Ground.  
As she touches it, the light of Ormazd abruptly bursts from the Fertile Ground, piercing her, and the vision engulfs her.

* * *

She sees a grand city, not unlike her own, hidden by the valleys and canyons, a shadow of its former glory, abandoned by its people. The city itself is covered in venomous plant tendrils, which are digging into the stone and earth alike, as if they were conquering the ruined city.  
The thick vine is not unlike Ahriman's Corruption, Elika realizes, but where Ahriman's Corruption destroyed and turned the land arid, this plant is lush and full of life, as if the nature itself exacted its vengeance upon foolish humans who dared to tame it.

She wonders what secrets and stories this city contained. She wonders about the reason of its downfall. She wonders if this could've happened to her kingdom, with all the similarities that the two lands bear. Somehow Elika knows that this was a kingdom of grand magic, and many wonders were contained in it before the vine took over.  
But now, the city is... empty.

* * *

When Elika comes to, she feels drained. She reaches to get up and suddenly her legs give in beneath her, as the Prince swiftly catches her before she has a chance to drop onto the ground.  
"I got you," the Prince says reassuringly.  
"I need...", she starts weakly, when the Prince seemingly reads her mind and carries her to the closest Light Seed. Her body absorbs it, and she feels suddenly revitalized, her exhaustion all but gone. "Thank you. You can put me down."

When the man gently sets her onto the ground and Elika finally feels the earth under her feet, she looks around, startled by the sudden change in the scenery.  
Where Corruption stained the earth before, now she sees lush vegetation. Where the slime covered empty river beds, now the water flows freely, clean and pristine. Even in its abandoned state, the Vale is still just as beautiful as she remembered.  
Except... Now it reminds her of the kingdom from her vision, and she can't help but wonder what that vision was all about.

"Who was that?", the princess is jerked out of her thoughts by the Prince's inquiry.  
"That— That was the Alchemist," she stumbles upon her own words, remembering the stories she heard long ago. "Once, he was one of the lead scientists of our city, creating mechanical wonders that people from other lands came to witness. The Vale was the place where he carried out experiments. With age, he grew cold and ruthless, forgoing emotion in favor of knowledge, but he still was afraid to death. And so he turned to Ahriman in his quest of to conquer the death itself, selling his soul in exchange for the immortality formula."  
"Well, personally, I've had enough of pretentious old men playing at running the world," the Prince snorts nonchalantly.

* * *

"How old are you, princess?", the Prince asks, trying to sound casually.  
"...What even brought on this question?", Elika's brow arches quizzically.  
"Well, I dunno," the man shrugs at her confused look. "You look young enough to be my daughter, and I think it's pretty bad for young people to get involved in near-apocalyptic events such as, you know, all this."  
"Young enough to be your daughter?", the priestess sputters indignantly, sounding almost insulted. "I'm almost twenty five years old, you know."  
"As I said, young enough to be my daughter," the Prince's smile grows into a grin.  
"You can't be serious," she says, examining his face, half-expecting him to say "Gotcha!" and laugh at the bad joke he made. "...You are serious."  
"What can I say," he says, barely containing his amusement, "time spared my roguish good looks."  
 **Didn't spare your loved ones, though. Not. A. Single. One.**  
And this one phrase is all it takes to ruin the Prince's semblance of a good mood.  
"...We have to get moving, Elika," he says grimly, and starts climbing the wall without waiting for her response.  
 **What? I only said the truth, you know.**  
"Shut up," the Prince mutters to himself, his voice sounding positively murderous.


	5. The Cavern

"What were you doing out here in the desert?", Elika's curiosity takes better of her. "I don't know that much about outside world, but I know that our city is hidden far away from usual trade routes."  
"I had a lot of angry people on my trail." the Prince answers simply. "Seeing as nothing was marked on the map in this particular location, it seemed like a good idea to travel through these lands for someone who wanted to evade other people."  
"Angry people?", the princess questions, her brow raised.  
"Yeah, they wanted to get their gold back, and I wasn't willing to part with it."  
" _Back?_ ", something clicks in her head, and she sputters in shock, "You're a thief!"  
"I prefer thinking of my line of work as 'wealth redistribution', thank you very much," he answers with a smirk plastered on his face. "And besides, stealing is not my only job and I don't steal from people that don't deserve it. I think of it as taking from the rich and giving to the poor."  
"And this 'poor' person just so happens to be you?"  
"Sometimes," the Prince admits, shrugging his shoulders. "At least I'm not robbing tombs or something, princess. I mean, even I have standards."

* * *

"What is this place?", the Prince muses out loud. "It looks like... a stage or an arena?"  
"You are not entirely wrong," Elika notes thoughtfully. "Before it was abandoned, The Cavern served as a place for people to gather for plays and concerts and magic shows full of tricks and wonders. It was a place where the most talented bards of the entire kingdom competed for attention of the royal family. Further through it lies the entrance to the Royal Palace, the last bastion of Ahura in our kingdom."  
"You actually lived here, princess?", the man says, clearly fascinated by the place. "Seems like the place is a tad too large for you and your father alone."  
"We are the royalty as you might've guessed," she says with a weak note of tiredness. "Where else we should have lived? As people trickled out of our kingdom, they abandoned the Vale and the Citadel. The last area to be completely abandoned was the City itself. The only people who remained were me, my father, my mother and our servants. The Palace more than sufficed."  
"Doesn't seem like your royal blood helped you at all," the Prince mutters under his breath.  
 **Didn't help you either.**  
"Shut it," the Prince doesn't make the mistake of raising his nearly whispering tone.

* * *

He suspects something is afoot when he sees a faint glimmer surrounding the column, and, sure enough, it disappears entirely when he tries to grab it mid-jump, revealing the illusion for what it is. He tumbles to the ground, barely managing to cancel the clumsy fall into a roll at the last moment and miraculously emerge unharmed after falling from a considerable height.

"Couldn't you have used your magic to catch me?", the Prince complains to the girl behind him, but when she fails to answer and he looks behind, he finds her missing. "Elika? Elika!?"  
"Oh, poor thing," he hears a drawling, vaguely female voice coming from the center of the stage, where the Fertile Ground is located. "Where his little princess might be?"  
Startled by the words, he turns to face the bearer of the voice.

The Corrupted woman wears a harem outfit, thin purple see-through cloth worn with time until it looks almost like a rag, adorned with golden decorations that lost their noble glint a long time ago. But where there once was a body of a beautiful woman, only the disgusting slime of the Corruption remains, like a twisted parody of the person this woman was before she surrendered her soul to Ahriman.  
The Prince notices the staff in her hand, shimmering with the tell-tale glimmer of the magic, the same as the illusionary column, he thinks in a moment of clarity.

"Where's Elika?", the Prince demands, raising his tone.  
"Tut-tut, young man, be patient," the monstrous female chides, "Your little princess is safe... for now."  
She makes a sweeping gesture with her arm, and, suddenly, the princess appears near the Corrupted woman, her body bound by the tendrils of Corruption.  
"It's the Concubine!", the girl manages to say before screaming out in pain when the tendrils tighten around her.

"If you want to save her, then all you have to do is... catch me," she says before winking out of existence and reappearing far away from the stage, standing leisurely, taunting the Prince to chase her.  
 **We're burning this smug witch on principle alone, mark my words.**  
"I thought you two kindred spirits would get along just fine," the Prince notes in mock-surprise.  
 **Only _I_ am allowed to harass and torment you.**

* * *

After leading the Prince on the merry chase, using the illusions to lure him, the Concubine appears back at the center of the stage, preparing for a direct confrontation. When the Prince attacks her, the woman's hold on the princess lapses momentarily, which is enough for Elika to free herself from the Corruption constraining her. With Elika's support and the Prince's swordplay, it is only a matter of time before the two of them force the Corrupted woman to retreat.

"Are you alright?", the Prince asks, helping the priestess up.  
"Yes— Yes," she says weakly, graciously accepting the Prince's hand. "I'll be fine in a moment."  
"Well, at least the witch is gone," he says casually.  
 **I think I prefer the Alchemist to that woman. At least his drivel is somewhat entertaining. Hers is just in bad taste.**  
"She's not gone, not for good," Elika counters. "We will need to cleanse the entire Royal Palace to be rid of her."  
"Yeah, yeah, I know. One can dream, you know," the man shrugs in admittance.  
"We need to heal the Fertile Ground," Elika reminds to the Prince, as she heads briskly for the center of the stage and, hesitating for a moment, walks into the light, feeling a familiar pull of magic.

* * *

She sees a grand royal palace, adorned with monumental golden domes and majestic hanging gardens. When her vision explores the rooms of the palace, she sees the human statues made of sand and, in a moment of realization, she understands. These are people, she thinks. An unknown catastrophe befell this place, erasing all the traces of life in the palace, leaving behind only the scattered sands in its rooms, draining people of life and turning them into grotesque sand statues.

She sees the throne room and the baths, the prison and the harem rooms, the gardens and the sewers, the bestiary and the sky-scraping towers. All of them desolate. All of them devoid of life. Only the everpresent sand, shifting in the wind or lying scattered in the rooms, in complete and utter silence.

And when it's time, when Elika is pulled out of the vision, she wonders why Ormazd chooses to show these empty places to her.


	6. King's Gate

"Tell me more about yourself," Elika demands abruptly, trying to make conversation and fill the empty silence.  
"What, are you perchance interested in this merry thing of threads and patches that is yours truly?", the Prince says playfully.  
"You are giving yourself too much credit," she retorts, before her tone turns serious. "I want to know why you are helping me. I have a history of men doing stupid things for my sake."  
"...I don't like walking away from my problems, princess."  
" _Your_ problems?", the priestess asks curiously.  
"Well, I was here when you needed help, and I offered it," he says nonchalantly. "That makes it my problem. Your hand, princess," he adds, offering her a hand to help her climb up.  
"I thought there was no honor among thieves," she accepts his help graciously, ascending above the Prince. "You are a strange man."  
"The strangest!", he boasts jokingly.

* * *

"King's Gate, the entrance to the Citadel," Elika remembers absentmindedly with a note of sadness in her voice, as she takes in the surroundings. "It was the main center of commerce in our kingdom. Merchants would gather here, offering goods and services, selling exotic foods and animals. Trade flourished here, bringing wealth and prosperity to our kingdom. Markets were bursting with both the daily necessities and opulent luxuries. And now it's gone. All gone."  
"What happened?", the Prince asks, barely concealing his interest.  
"The same thing that happened to the rest of the kingdom. People left," she answers simply. "With no people, there was no need for trade. With no trade, there was need for this place. The place, just like the Vale, was abandoned long before I was born."

An uneasy quiet settles between them.

"This is the domain of the Hunter," Elika is the first to break the settled silence. "He is likely watching us, waiting to spring a trap. We have to be careful."

* * *

And the trap is indeed sprung.

Before the unlikely pair manages to climb the central structure of the King's Gate even halfway, the floor under their feet suddenly begins to crumble, and the entire building starts collapsing under its own weight.  
"Go!", the Prince barks the command as he breaks into a run. "We need to reach the top before we are crushed underneath!"  
"It shouldn't do that!", the princess shouts in response, throwing the man with the help of her magic onto a hanging column. "It's supposed to be stable! The structure was built to withstand centuries!"  
"What, you thought every single one of them would wait politely until we reach the Fertile Ground before trying to kill us?!"

The thief and the princess perform a mad dash up and above, narrowly avoiding the falling debris, the Corruption trying to entangle and consume them, and the crumbling floor. They manage to reach the caged top floor where the Fertile Ground is located, just in time for the structure to end its collapse abruptly, as it apparently reaches the stopping point, reduced to a third of its original height.  
When the pair realizes that the ground won't come sliding from under their feet at any moment, they slow down to a stop.  
"Remind me not to do this again," the Prince manages to say, catching his breath.  
"Let's hope that the Fertile Ground is still intact after this stunt," Elika comments, also catching her breath, visibly tired by the unexpected ordeal.  
"I'm getting too old for th—"

Thanks solely to his reflexes, the Prince barely manages to block the unexpected assault with his gauntlet, as he staggers under the weight of the Hunter's blade.  
"Princess!", the man's voice betrays a slight note of panic. "We might have a problem here!"

* * *

When Elika walks into the ray of light after the brief struggle with the Hunter that ended with the Hunter fleeing into the depths of the Citadel, she knows what to expect.

Elika is already becoming accustomed to the visions the Healing process gives her, and so, she isn't surprised to find herself standing in front of a dark ruined stronghold. It's just as empty as the previous places she was shown in the visions, and she finds herself wishing she could explore freely instead of being limited to what she's being shown.

The vision takes Elika further into the fortress, and she is unsurprised by the state of the inner rooms.  
Ruined. Overrun with rust and plant growth. Abandoned.  
And then she passes through a waterfall that takes into a room with... a portal? The portal is filled with whirling sand, and when she passes through it and back through the waterfall, she is surprised to find herself in a room that looks like it didn't withstand the ravages of time, like it wasn't abandoned at all, as if someone was actually living here. She supposes the vision is trying to show her how the fortress looked before its ruination, but the rooms of the stronghold remain suspiciously empty, and just as silent and devoid of life as they were moments before, before she passed through the portal.

Finally, it seems like her vision is about to end, when Elika finds herself in a room that contains only a giant locked door and a giant hourglass. She absentmindedly examines the hourglass, its sand endlessly flowing downward, towards some sort of unseen time limit, when she feels the pull of her magic ejecting her from the vision.

* * *

"We need to collect more of these," Erika states firmly as she follows the Prince's wallrun and absorbs yet another Light Seed into her body.  
"What are these anyway?", Prince asks distractedly.  
"I... don't know," she frowns in confusion. "They are coming from the Fertile Grounds, they revitalize my body, and they feel like they make my magic... stronger."  
"Okay, got it, Light Seeds good, Corruption bad," the man retorts cheerfully. "Me smart man, you magical girl."

"While we're on the topic, mind telling how old are you really?", the priestess asks innocently.  
"Old enough," Prince's smirk grows into a grin.  
"You said you are old enough to be my father."  
"That I did," Prince's grin threatens to eclipse his face.  
"So that makes you, like, what, forty, forty five?", Elika measures his reaction carefully.  
"More like along the lines of late thirties, but, yes, that's the gist of it."  
"...You look too young," Elika states, trying to reach a conclusion. "What were you doing all these years aside from thieving?"  
"I doubt you would want to know about it," the Prince deflects her question.

 **Smooth. Real smooth. I wonder, will I be invited to the marriage of you two?**  
"Shut up," the Prince mutters reflexively.  
 **I'm not the one here flirting with a girl fifteen years younger than me.**


End file.
